


Jus Post Bellum

by Kahika



Series: Relay Monument Incident [4]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Breathplay, F/M, Post-Horizon (Mass Effect), Public Display of Affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 18:56:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4490925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahika/pseuds/Kahika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashley wants to forget about all but failing her first solo assignment, about Garrus and Shepard working for Cerberus, about the Alliance hiding Shepard's resurrection from her, about a year and a half worrying about Garrus. Garrus wants friction, Sidonis in his rifle sights, and Ashley to be happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jus Post Bellum

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline a little adjusted to get both Garrus and Thane's loyalty missions earlier.
> 
> Cheers to Beltsquid for letting me borrow her headcanon that Chakwas explained the whole Collector thing to Garrus, because canonically on-screen Shepard doesn't breathe a word of it to him while recruiting him, even after he's safely onboard.

There are a lot of dark haired human women in the galaxy. There are probably several in the Alliance who wear battle dress uniform to clubs instead of civvies. So Garrus isn't really expecting anything when he blurts out, "Ash?" in the middle of I-Nova.

As soon as he says it, his visor informs him the woman's heart rate is speeding up. Ashley looks up sharply and then starts shaking her head. "No. No, I'm not talking to you. We're not doing this again."

He's in agreement there. They're not dancing around each other, unsure of each other's feelings again. They're not falling in love by e-mail again. And he's not getting physically ignored again, not knowing what to say to every word of hurt and accusation that applies just as much to him as it does to Shepard, only to finally get looked in the eye as she claims to be no fan of aliens.

They're not breaking each other's hearts again.

"Okay. You don't want to talk. That's fine," he says. "But I've just had the _shittiest_ day, and you're almost dry. Let me buy a beautiful woman a drink."

"It's your credits," she says sourly, and then she shoots him a pointed look over her glass. "Or is it Cerberus funding? Because I'm not drinking anything that _Cerberus_ bought me."

He rolls his eyes. "It's mine." That he hacked out of a wall safe yesterday and split with Shepard, but she doesn't need to know that. "You still drinking vodka and Paragade?"

She gives a nod. He orders her drink and a whiskey for himself then sits down next to her on the couch, and they drink without looking at each other. Once her heart rate calms down, Garrus turns his biofeed off, because having an extra source of information on her emotional state seems a bit unfair. The last time he'd seen her before Horizon, the developers hadn't patched the software for humans yet.

After a solid three minutes of silence, she says, "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

He finishes his drink first and downs another one in the time it takes Ashley to sulk through her vodka and Paragade. Eventually, she stands.

"Restroom," she says, grabbing him by the mostly intact side of his cowl and pulling him out of his stool.

He could easily fight her off. She's tipsy. He won most of their cargo bay sparring sessions with superior technique on top of the slightly better raw body strength. He's in armor while she's in uniform. He has claws, however blunted by his gloves, and she doesn't.

None of this actually occurs to him. He just lets her drag him through I-Nova to the men's room, where he soon finds himself thrown against the wall, Ashley kissing him hard and vicious as a salarian hurriedly finishes his business in a nearby urinal and leaves. Closing his eyes and kissing her back is instinctive, and for a moment, almost _right_ , until he tastes the levo vodka and Paragade on her tongue and remembers that they're in public and the only contact they've had in the last year and a half has been a mostly one-sided argument about Cerberus that ended in her posturing at xenophobia. Garrus pushes her away. Turian protocol for romantic reunions doesn't involve public restroom walls, and he's pretty sure the human one doesn't either.

"What the _hell_?"

"I had to prove it was really you," Ashley says, her gaze as focused on him as she focuses on targets she's about to snipe. "I thought you were _dead_."

Garrus winces. Okay, he can see how she could get that impression from his lack of contact, but he'd hardly call kissing the best way to verify someone's identity. "It's definitely me," he says. "I know you hate wearing your dress uniform because it makes you think of your father's funeral and Kaidan and Shepard's memorials, I know you only ever slept with humans before me, and I know your _awful_ drink order. How many have you had?"

"A lot of people know my drink order," she says, rolling her eyes. "But I got told three days ago that I screwed up on Horizon, I'm still waiting to be reassigned and probably demoted, and I spent this morning yelling at Anderson for stonewalling me about Shepard. I didn't have _enough_."

 _I didn't have enough,_ she says, day drinking. With a sigh, he starts hacking into her omni-tool for her credit chit transactions. Normally he'd never consider looking at her omni-tool without permission, but he's concerned she'll do something more stupid than kiss him, and he really is looking for only one file. As her omni-tool glows on her arm, she tries to shut it down manually. He wonders if she ever got the Infiltrator training she wanted.

"What are you - fuck off, Vakarian, I have classified files -"

Her reverting to using his surname for things other than joking military talk stings a little, but he doesn't call her out on it. He deserves it, after she used his first name at Horizon and he dropped back to her surname. That attempt to stay professional in front of Shepard and Jack quickly went downhill once Shepard caught him staring at an old photo of Ashley in the shuttle, anyway.

"I'm not interested in Alliance intel; I'm just trying to find out how much you've been drinking." He looks up at her. She's not lying: She's only had a few. But up until the one he bought her, she was buying them _fast_ , so more drinks aren't going to help. "And you've had too much. Let's get you home."

"You're not taking me to Alchera," she says, and Garrus startles. "Yeah, I heard about the monument at the crash site. I don't see why _I_ couldn't have placed it, or Adams - you know, a survivor who isn't a _traitor_."

It's not even her finding out about the crash site that surprised him. It's the fact that two years later, she still thinks of the _Normandy_ \- the _SSV Normandy_ \- as home.

It's the realization that so does he. Purely on design specs, defensive capabilities, and facilities, the SR-2 is a better ship, but it's hard to feel at home on it with the Cerberus crew sideeying him worse than Ashley ever did and half the non-Cerberus squad being actual criminals. The SSV was home because of the people.

He sighs. "Ash -"

Ashley hooks her forearm over the cowl of his armor and slams it into his throat. Garrus tries not to react as his plates start to shift. The night before she'd left on her new assignment two years ago, he'd gone down on her again, and she'd clamped her thighs around his head tighter and tighter the closer she got to coming. He'd written off its appeal back then as her loss of control, but now her control's only iffy because of the alcohol, not because of anything _he's_ doing; it's definitely the possibility of being unable to breathe that's getting to him. Of _all_ times to discover he's into breathplay...

"You don't _get_ to call me 'Ash' any more," she says. "I thought you figured that out at Horizon."

He swallows. "Chief Williams."

"I don't want to talk," she says, stepping forward. Though he moves back to avoid her digging into his windpipe, she follows him, crowding him back into the wall with her arm still firmly on his neck. She shoves a thigh between his legs and raises an eyebrow when he automatically thrusts into the touch. His armor masks a lot, but the movement probably says more than enough. "Looks like you don't either."

"You are not sober enough to try a new kink," he says softly.

"Why not?" Ashley presses harder on his throat. Despite himself, his hips roll against her, and his mouth opens on a faint moan that's mostly subvocal. "I was pretty damn wasted when I first tried xenophilia."

An increasing amount of his brain wants to let this happen, but his survival instincts won't shut up. "Because I _refuse_ to die in a restroom," he manages to get out.

"It's what you deserve," she whispers.

And then her tongue and fucking Paragade are in his mouth and Garrus kisses her back without thinking, starting to feel a little lightheaded as she uses her free hand to grab his hip. Even within his armor his plates are more sensitive for the lack of oxygen, every seam of his compression suit, every edge and circuit board of his armor pressing into him everywhere that her body's pinning him to the wall and especially on his fully emerged cock. It's overwhelming, the wires for pain and pleasure hopelessly, dangerously crossed in his brain. His lungs burn, his legs weaken, and he thinks Ashley's the only thing keeping him upright until suddenly she releases him. As he drops to the floor, coughing and gasping for air, she steps away from him like he's not worthy to fall on her boots; he can feel her watching him.

"Don't you ever do that drunk again," he eventually snarls, but it's hoarse, and his subharmonic betrays how desperately turned on he is. "And _why_ exactly do I deserve to die in a restroom? Because I work for Shepard _using_ Cerberus, or because I couldn't write you for a year and a half?"

" _Yes_."

Ah. Angry Alliance soldier _and_ angry like an ex. Finally feeling like he's sucked in enough oxygen, Garrus pulls himself up to sit leaning against the wall and looks up at her. Her expression's hard, more _heat_ to it than there was on Horizon and at least a little desire.

"What do you _want_?" he asks, since she's clearly in no mood to listen to apologies or explanations.

"I _want_ to forget about all but failing my first solo assignment, about you and Shepard working for Cerberus, about the Alliance hiding her resurrection from me, about a year and a half worrying about you." Ashley crouches next to him and looks him in the eye. "I want a quick fuck in the restroom. Got a condom?"

His mandibles flare in disbelief. "I came to the Citadel on a revenge mission, not a booty call."

Ashley pauses, and for the first time since he walked into this club, it feels like she's really seeing him, instead of just projecting her own resentment onto him.

"Did you get it?" she asks, her tone one of actual personal concern.

"What?" he asks, as much in surprise as to clarify.

"Revenge."

"No," Garrus says bitterly. "Shepard stopped me." It's what brought him to the club in the first place.

Empathy softens her face, more like the Ashley he knew after the _Normandy_ was destroyed, and she lifts a hand to his scars. Only a week old, they're still healing and still sensitive. She's the first person to touch them like she _wants_ to, instead of clinically like Chakwas. His eyes flutter closed at her touch as she brushes her thumb across them, then open in surprise again when she headbutts him. "Shitty day."

"I don't want to talk about it," he says. Explaining Sidonis would mean explaining Archangel, and explaining his failure.

Just as he thinks he has a handle on the abrupt change to the situation, she swings a leg over both of his to sit firmly in his lap. She rolls her hips, and automatically his hands go to her waist as he moves against her in return, a low whine escaping in his subvocal.

"What _do_ you want?"

He wants more friction. He wants Sidonis in his rifle sights. He wants less armor and clothing between them. He wants to pull the trigger. He wants Ashley's fingers on his throat.

He wants her, he realizes with horrible clarity, to be happy, not this drunken mess of anger and arousal and affection. Spirits, after she pretty much said they were over on Horizon he'd been hoping the feeling would fade.

There's one thing he can do to make her happy, or at least get her mind off things. Even if she can't stand him any more, at least she still _wants_ him.

"Anti-levo meds," he says.

She strokes his scars one more time, then lurches to her feet; he puts up a hand to steady her, but she shakes him off with a little more force than necessary.

"I'm surprised no one came in after that salarian left," he says, once they're out of the restroom.

"I was going to tell you to lock the door if we'd stayed," she says. "It's handy, having an electronics expert for a..."

She frowns, and shuts her mouth. It's not like he knows how to finish that sentence either.

"Having an electronics expert around," he suggests, but it feels hollow and inadequate. He changes the subject. "Your place or mine?"

"I'm not taking you to Alliance barracks," she says, which he'd expected, really. "And I'm not stepping foot on a Cerberus ship."

"So, hotel."

"Doesn't have to be fancy," Ashley says dryly.

"Mm," he says. "Take the woman who just propositioned me in a restroom to a fancy hotel. That sounds like something I would do."

"You there!"

His translator doesn't make a sound, which means it's actual Apien Crest. Garrus glances ahead, and wonders why the barefaced turian man coming towards them with a krogan trailing behind looks faintly familiar.

The man twitches his mandibles, all friendly and appealing for trust, as he comes to a stop before him. "Joram Talid, running for Zakera Ward Intendant. Have you decided who you're voting for this election?"

Zakera Ward is not the ward he was last a registered voter in. Staring at him, Garrus tries to remember if he qualifies to vote on the Citadel at all, and realizes he hasn't been away long enough to lose that privilege. "Not really."

He can feel Ashley restless and then bristling at his side as Talid launches into well rehearsed promises to eradicate crime and remove humans from power, though to his credit, he never specifies the human woman before him. Garrus steps slightly in front of her, and even he doesn't know whom he's trying to protect.

"I'm a C-Sec agent," he says, when the politician finally pauses for breath. This pyjak doesn't need to know he quit. "The increase in crime has been across _every_ species since the attack on the Citadel, not just humans. Hell, if any species has had a _marked_ increase, it's quarians, and at least half of those arrests are actually just officers angry about the geth. As for humans -"

He turns around and kisses Ashley, pressing against every part of her body he can reach. She freezes for a moment, and then kisses him back, fingers in his fringe, tongue in his mouth, hooking a leg around his waist. It's a tangle of force, passion, _show_ ; it's a gesture that's anything but turian. Pissing off a racist politician isn't exactly how he ever imagined public displays of affection with her, but mostly he's amazed that she isn't pushing him away.

They keep at it until Talid coughs pointedly, but Garrus still counts an extra five seconds before disengaging, and he keeps an arm around Ashley.

"I vote in Bachjret Ward anyway," he says, and starts escorting her off.

They're a block away when she punches him in the arm and says, " _Warn me_ before public displays of affection," anger coiled with fear in her voice.

"You kissed me in a restroom," he points out incredulously.

"I checked for humans first," she says, her voice cracking.

He glances sideways at her. Her lips are pressed together, but there's worry as well as disapproval in her eyes.

"One day I'm going to get tired of being your dirty little secret," he says, a fact without emotion.

"You say 'one day' like we have a future," she says. "Like there even is a 'we' to have a future."

They _don't_ have a future, what with his suicide mission, but that isn't what bugs him. Garrus pivots in front of her. "You can pretend there isn't a 'we' to the Alliance. You can pretend to your racist grandmother. But don't pretend to _me_."

She tries to step past him. He blocks her, catching her by the arm for good measure.

"A year and a half of radio silence doesn't make a 'we'," she says.

"No," he agrees. "Telling me to warn you about public displays of affection like you think they'll happen again makes a 'we'. Me buying _you_ a drink instead of any other woman in that club makes a 'we'. You kissing me to verify my identity and propositioning _me_ instead of some _human_ guy makes a 'we'." He searches her gaze. "The main reason I said yes does."

She's silent for a moment before nodding, resigned, and her whisper's electric with emotion. "We still have something."

"Consider this your warning," he says, and he slides his hand up to her cheek. She frowns, but closes her eyes and leans into his touch. "We have something _real_ , too much for a quick fuck in the restroom. Do you really think this is going to help you forget?"

"It almost worked the first time," she mutters. "At the very least it'll help me feel _good_ for five minutes."

Garrus drops his hand. "Five minutes?" For some reason _that_ offends him more than her trying to keep him a secret.

"That was my restroom quickie estimate," she says hastily.

"I had a shitty day too," he says, resuming their walk to the nearest pharmacy. "If we're dropping credits on meds and a hotel room, I want to feel good for more than five minutes."

"When do you have to be back?"

He shrugs. "Told the Commander to call me when she's done helping someone else with his personal problems. Mine took a day and a half; dunno about Thane's."

"So, could be half an hour, could be overnight," she says. "I'll take those odds."

They split the costs of the meds, condoms, ointment (she'd complained about chafing two years ago), and a cheap, dirty motel room, then by mutual agreement leave their boots at the door. Garrus has barely swallowed his pills before Ashley's upon him, shoving him up against the bathroom door and undoing his armor.

"I thought this wasn't a bathroom quickie," he says, hastening to help her.

"I'm just getting started with you," she says, her voice low, and it sends both thrill and foreboding down his spine. Her fingers pause on the burnt edges of his armor's carapace. "What happened to your armor?"

The story's too long and too tragic to tell in the middle of foreplay. "Rocket."

"Is that what happened to your face?"

Before he can answer, she drags her tongue up one of his scars as if specifying what exactly on his face she means, and his "yeah" comes out in a moan that almost sounds like a sob. He'll never admit that he'd thought of her and wondered how she'd react when he'd told Shepard that women, albeit most of them krogan, liked men with scars; Wrex may claim Ashley fights like a krogan but she _isn't_ one. It's a relief to find that she at least doesn't mind touching them. It's a surprise to find out _how_ sensitive they are. Ashley looks pleasantly surprised by this discovery too, or possibly a little smug.

"Is Cerberus too cheap to buy you new armor?" she asks.

Judging by Shepard's resurrection and the new _Normandy_ , Cerberus is the opposite of cheap, but he knows better than to say this to as staunch an Alliance soldier as Ashley.

"It's a reminder," he says instead.

He doesn't want to explain, and she probably doesn't want to hear it, because when he goes for the clasp of her shirt to get at the zipper underneath, she doesn't ask any more questions nor make any move to stop him. Very carefully, he starts undressing her, trailing licks and kisses over every inch of skin he uncovers. With every touch she gives pleased little sounds that go straight to his cock. Ashley unpins her bun and shakes out her braid, leaving her hair wavy like it was when they saw Tali off, but it's longer than she'd kept it back then. He's itching to get his claws into it. More than that, he's amazed that she's willing to play into his liking her hair down even while she's mad at him. In some respects, he's a lucky turian.

She puts the elastics and pins on the bathroom counter, but he sweeps them aside with their purchases before he picks her up and sits her on top of it, standing between her legs to strip down: Visor, one glove (leaving the other one in case Shepard contacts him and he needs to use his omni-tool), compression suit tunic, socks. They both keep their omni-tools on, both too aware that this could end any moment, but with the way their clothes and armor are scattering on the floor, he's pretty sure someone's going to trip trying to leave.

"You going to be working with a team on your next mission?" he asks, stepping out of his pants and underwear.

"I don't know," says Ashley. "Why?"

He presses his gloved claws into her waist just hard enough to clarify exactly what he's talking about. "Because I want to know how far I can go."

Hunger surges in her eyes, but reluctantly she shakes her head. "Better play it safe."

"Damn," he murmurs, dipping down and lightly running his teeth along the top of her breasts. She lets out a whine.

"Believe me, I want you to," she breathes, nails digging into his carapace.

"You know, I _never_ would have expected that," he says, reaching behind her for her bra. "Not that I ever thought about what you like in bed _before_ our cultural exchange, but humans are so easy to bruise, to cut. And then you tell me it's a good kind of hurt." He nips where her jaw meets her neck, more affectionate than sexual, and then immediately drags the gesture into the gutter: "That is so weirdly hot."

His mandibles draw together as he realizes he's completely failing to unclasp her bra. Ashley laughs, taking pity on him and removing it herself. It's the brightest sound he's heard from her in two years and he wants to hear it again.

"Why are those things so complicated?" he complains.

She actually giggles this time. His heart aches. "They're really not. They're just hook and eye fastenings. You just need more practice."

"Are you offering?"

Ashley shrugs, and though her tone is light, there's something sad in her eyes now. "If we get time before I have to ship out and you have to get back..."

They always run on time limits. Garrus sighs, and her eyes narrow determinedly. Leaning forward, she sucks on his scarred mandible, and he grabs her knees to keep from falling over, because he hadn't expected that insistent suction on already sensitive tissue and it's better than he would have imagined.

It's not so distracting that he doesn't notice her running one of her hands down his chest to wrap tight around him. Hard and desperate for more, he spreads her thighs apart as he bucks into her fist. She's wet already, he can smell it in the air, and he doesn't think he can last long like this, so he reaches sideways for a condom.

"I've got it," she says, snatching it from his hand. Gaze locked on his, she rips open the packet with her teeth (which can't be easy, given the bluntness of human teeth and the strength of packets designed for turian claws, so it's more impressive and a little terrifying than erotic) and rolls the condom onto him. "Come on -"

She scoots forward on the counter and drags him towards her by the hips. That close, it's easy to slide into her wet heat, tangling a hand into her hair and groaning as he feels her adjust around him. Ashley winces, hiding her face in his neck.

"Shit," she mutters. "Forgot about this part."

"Sorry," he murmurs.

Ashley shakes her head. "Not your fault. Just - biology, and it's been two years since I've been with a turian. I guess I narrowed down my memory to the good part. I know it's gonna be worth it."

" _You're_ worth it," he breathes without thinking.

She looks up at him. "That doesn't even make sense."

"You're worth all the waiting and secrecy and meds and this _awful_ room and every time I saved your ass," he clarifies, leaning down to headbutt her.

She slaps his ass, and Garrus yelps in surprise. "I seem to recall saving _your_ ass from a charging krogan on the Citadel two years ago."

"You know what I mean."

The first _Normandy_ 's cargo bay hangs between them, the most important time he's saved her ass as far as he's concerned; not because it was the start of their relationship, but because she seemed to be implying in her e-mail so long ago that he'd saved her from herself. It doesn't feel right to ask about it right now. It doesn't feel right to ask about it out loud at all.

"But I'm guessing I'm not worth leaving Cerberus," she says, her voice small.

"You can't do that," he says. "You can't make me choose between you and going after the Collectors. Not when I'm doing this for you."

Ashley frowns. "What do you mean, you're doing this for me?"

"Chakwas told me the Collectors are targeting human colonies," he says. "The first one I thought of was Amaterasu. You prayed for my family. Let me protect yours."

Her eyes widen, and then she wraps her legs around his waist and draws him inside her, kissing him urgent and grateful. He tangles their tongues together, every stroke into her harder and faster until they're more moaning into each other's mouths than actually kissing; he half-suspects they're going to break the counter. This isn't two years ago, the relief of a month and a half's worth of sexual tension heavily tempered by two weeks of shocked grief and a two day countdown to indefinite separation. This is a year and a half of furious worry and three days of anger about Cerberus and not even an hour of finally being together again after two years apart, mixed together and brought to the boil, almost too hot to stand.

Too hot for him to last for long, especially with her nails digging in _just_ where he likes them on his chest and carapace, especially after that stunt she pulled in I-Nova. He breaks the 'kiss' and _trills_ when he comes like he hasn't in two years, hips stuttering raggedly into hers until it almost hurts to continue, but he keeps going because she hasn't come yet. His pace evens out again, and as she starts to tense up, he rests his forehead against hers. In this maelstrom of emotions and movement, he needs one thing to be still.

"I know I'm not worth leaving the Alliance," he murmurs. "But they can't stop this. They can get between us, sure, but they can't change how I feel."

Ashley looks utterly overwhelmed, and he's not sure if it's because of what he just said or because the sex is that good. A second later she cries out his name and pulses around him, hands tight as his compression suit on his hips, and he knows it's the sex, but he did say he'd make her scream his name one day. Once she's done, he goes to withdraw. She doesn't let him, wrapping her arms around him and leaning into his chest, and he's not at all complaining; he's content to be surrounded by this soft human he's still ( _damnit_ ) helplessly in love with.

He's not sure how long they respectively lean and sit like that in silence before she eventually says, "I broke my wrist."

He draws his mandibles together, carefully taking both her wrists for inspection. One of them has a scar on the inside which he doesn't remember from trying to memorize her body two years ago, but apart from that, they look fine. "What?"

"Not _now_ ," Ashley says, shaking her head. "A year and a half ago. Three months after you quit C-Sec. The day after I tried to e-mail you and it came back saying your e-mail address was deleted. We were out on a mission, Blood Pack attacking this mining base for eezo, and my friend Bilal, he yells, 'Scratch one!' after dropping a merc, and I thought of you, and I lost focus, and a krogan charged me into a wall. The bone was sticking out. Bilal fainted when he saw it."

The scar makes sense now. He kisses it, and feels her pulse hasten under his mouthplates, but she yanks her arm out of his grasp.

"I thought you were dead," she says. "You didn't sign into your Citadel e-mail for three months - and it's you; the first thing you do when you wake up is check your omni-tool, if only to delete your latest fan letter from Dr. Michel - and no one else had heard from you -"

"I'm sorry -" he says, like almost every e-mail he tried to send her since moving to Omega, but she keeps going.

"First Shepard, and then you, in the space of six months. The woman who saved my life against all logic, and _you_ , my -" She gestures at him helplessly, and he nods, because he knows now's not the time to try and name their relationship. "And you know what the worst part was? I couldn't even confirm it. Shepard? We _saw_ her get spaced; we thought there was no coming back from that. And it was hard, but I was trying to get over her, over the _Normandy_ , and some days it was even working. But you? I had no idea, no way to find out for sure - I couldn't move on if there was still a chance that you might be alive somewhere."

"Ash -"

" _Over a year!_ " she cries. "Over a year I didn't know if you were alive or dead but I was so sure I'd lost you - I stopped letting myself think about the last time we were on the Citadel together, because with you gone, I almost thought I'd made those two days up."

The thought of Ashley believing they hadn't had that precious time together somehow breaks his heart more than learning she'd physically injured herself worrying about him. " _Ashley_ -"

"I prayed for you every single day," she says. "And I prayed for Shepard. So when I saw the two of you on Horizon, it was like my prayers were answered. But then it turns out I've lost you both to _Cerberus_ -"

Garrus takes a file from her datapad and kisses her. At first she hits him on the chest, but then she clings to him instead, like she never wants to let him go.

She's quiet when they finally disengage, Garrus tilting his head to rest his forehead against hers.

"I'm so sorry," he says softly. "I never, ever meant to hurt you; I just got carried away trying to get justice, trying to make a difference. I tried to contact you once things finally settled down, but you got reassigned, and I couldn't find out where - I almost asked two separate people to hack the Alliance to try and find you."

Ashley pulls back to look at him more clearly. "You _what_?"

"I realized you wouldn't appreciate it," he says, and decides to leave out the facts that one of the people he was going to ask was batarian and the other works for Cerberus. "Our species have too much history. It probably would have started a war."

As if on cue, the Alliance anthem starts playing from her omni-tool. They both stare at it.

"Don't answer," he blurts out, knowing that will never be an option for her.

"It's Personnel Command; I have to take it," she says apologetically. She clears her throat. "Operations Chief Ashley Williams, reporting for duty. Do I sound sober and not like I have a turian's dick inside me?"

Taking the hint, he pulls out, and she whines in disappointment. "Congratulations on your promotion," he says. He'd gotten too distracted by - well, her - to say it earlier.

"Gonna take that as a yes," she says, tapping at her omni-tool. "Williams."

There's only the faintest hum from her earpiece. Garrus takes the opportunity to dispose of the condom as quietly as possible.

"No, ma'am, I can't sync for vidchat right now," she says, her voice surprisingly military. "I just got out of the shower."

He smirks, and runs his talons over her thighs. She'd certainly look interesting in vidchat right now. She makes a face at him and pulls her feet up onto the counter.

"Understood," she says. "I'll be there. Thank you, Admiral."

She lets her legs dangle again, which he takes to mean she's hung up; the confirmation comes when she wraps her hands around the back of his neck and asks, "Where were we?"

"What's the reassignment?" he asks.

"I'm not telling you that."

He sighs. For someone so angry about the lack of contact, she sure isn't making it easy to contact her. "Is it a solo mission?"

Ashley blinks, and then smiles thinly, like a turian trying to pick up other species' facial expressions. "Yes."

With the lightest trace of a talon around her neckline, Garrus reminds himself where her PT uniforms cover, and then starts biting hard below her collarbone, barely restraining himself from breaking skin. She groans, throwing her head back as she arches into his touch.

"When do you ship out?" he asks, scoring over her breasts.

She whines, clinging tightly to his carapace. "Tomorrow morning."

"Time?"

"Oh -" She breaks off, gasping as he digs his talons into her waist, and her amendment of "Oh seven hundred hours," is breathless.

"So we might have a night," he says, trailing his claws down to her hips.

"Depends on when your call comes in," she says.

Garrus pulls back to study his handiwork. "Dinner?"

"Don't do that," she says, almost as miserable as on Horizon. "Don't - don't ask me out on a date pretending you're not. This isn't two years ago; there's too much between us now. Just -"

He doesn't give her a chance to say what she wants instead, because he kisses her, and she kisses him back instead of talking. Blindly reaching back with his foot, he kicks a path through their clothes and armor, and then scoops Ashley up again. She hits him as he carries her to the bedroom, pressing her body against his even as she tries to make him put her down, master of the mixed message as always. So he's not as gentle as he could be when he dumps her onto the bed and climbs over her, but she seems to like it rough anyway, so long as it doesn't leave distinctly inhuman marks that Alliance squadmates might see in the showers.

She fights him to get on top, as much a cargo bay sparring session on the first _Normandy_ as it is sex; there are definitely some Alliance standard throws in between strokes and kisses and bites, and he uses some Hierarchy military holds too. They actually fall off the bed and get back onto it _twice_ before he manages to pin her down with his head between her legs, teasing his tongue and teeth up the insides of her thighs.

"If you'd wanted to eat me out you could have just said," says Ashley, the end of it edging into a whine.

"You wanted to hit me," he points out. "You were mad about Cerberus and me not writing."

"You make very aggravating life choices," she agrees.

"I know," he says, parting her folds with his knuckle. "I chose the one Alliance soldier who can't be seen with a turian." He gives a deep sigh over her clit. "I should have hooked up with Joker."

She hits him in the head. He's _definitely_ going to ask Chakwas if he has a concussion later. For now, he climbs back over her body and headbutts her, leaving his hand where it is.

"I don't regret my choice," he says.

Ashley lifts a hand and cups his scarred cheek, thumb brushing his mandible. "When you say things like that, it just makes this harder."

"Not saying them doesn't make them less true." He puts the lightest pressure on her clit, and she squirms for friction until he pins her hip. "Do you regret choosing a turian?"

"Garrus," she whimpers, trying to arch against him. " _Please_ -"

He nips at her lower lip. "Do you regret choosing me?"

"I regret choosing a _tease_ ," she complains, which he has a feeling is as good as he's going to get, so he gives in and strokes her, but _gently_ , because if he's going to be called a tease he's damn well going to live up to it.

Slowly, he trails bites and kisses along her jaw and down her neck, careful not to bruise until he's into where her uniforms cover, and as he gets closer to where she wants him, he punctuates the onslaught with apologies and affirmations and "I missed you" pressed into her skin. She doesn't answer him except in moans and sighs, not until he's murmuring to her in his subvocal, which he knows won't translate.

"My translator's glitching," she says. "What are you say--"

Her question strangles itself into a gasp, because that's when he finally licks at her entrance in earnest, but he has no plans to answer her anyway. If _I don't regret choosing you_ makes things too hard, she won't want to hear things like _I love you_ and _I don't want anyone else in the galaxy_ and _seeing you again makes Shepard and Chakwas saving my life worth it_.

"Gonna need you to keep your legs open for me," he says instead. "I don't trust myself to breathe if you try and trap me again."

She considers him, then puts her legs over his shoulders and hooks her ankles together behind his carapace, which is more than acceptable. He goes back in but takes his time, savoring her taste, her every response, their every chain reaction. Her legs tremble as he laps at her folds, his facial plates pressed to the inside of her thighs, and as he dips his tongue into her, her fingers tangle into his fringe, which makes him groan, which makes her whine because the sound vibrates through her. He lifts his chin and trails a mandible over her experimentally, swirling over her clit, and she makes this _squeak_ of surprised arousal that gets a delighted twitch of his mandibles and a repeat performance.

Finally, he brushes a knuckle over her clit at the same time as he presses his tongue firmly to that sweet spot inside her and she bucks into him, restraint going out the window. Forget anything in Fornax or Afterlife or even on the extranet, the fragmenting of her self control is the most erotic thing in the galaxy; he's not even touching himself or grinding into the bed and he's fully unsheathed again.

She's almost sobbing with need when he hums, just one long note instead of the dance mixes he likes to listen to, but the flanged vibrato sets her off, makes her arch wordless off the bed, more beautiful than the cleanest headshot or the Danori Spires. He keeps tonguing her through the aftershocks until she pushes him off of her, and then he climbs up to lie on his side next to her, his claws skimming idly over her waist as she catches her breath.

Maybe he should be more worried about her decisions to drown her sorrows in vodka and Paragade and/or a man, but this second time around he's finding a new appreciation for it, because when there's nothing but the two of them, it's easy to pretend that he didn't get ten good men and women killed and let their murderer walk, that he didn't make her worry about him for over a year, that her full name ends at Madeline and a relationship with a turian couldn't ruin her career.

It's easy to pretend she still loves him, that they're just making good on the fantasies they'd typed and whispered into their omni-tools four relays apart. He's always been good at seeing what he wanted to instead of what's in front of his eyes.

His claws brush one of the bruises he left earlier, and suddenly he realizes that while the frenzy in the bathroom was definitely fucking, _this_ was making love to her.

It's that intimacy, real and pretend and hormonal, that makes him admit, "I almost died a week ago."

Her eyes widen, and she reaches up to tenderly touch his scars. "God, we have the worst pillow talk."

"A little morbid, yes, but I swear this gets better," he says. "While I was making my last stand, you were one of the two people I tried to contact. I thought, I can't die without Ash knowing how I feel."

Ashley stares at him. "How _do_ you -" She bites her lip and shakes her head, apparently deciding she doesn't want to know. "Who was the other person?"

"Councilor Tevos," he deadpans.

She groans and smacks him in the carapace. "I'm starting to think you have a crush on her."

"I called my dad," he says. "Started to patch things up with him."

"Good," she says, turning her head to press their foreheads together. "I'm glad."

"Yeah." He closes his eyes. "I'm also glad I get another chance with you."

"Another chance to sleep with me?"

The snark of her tone doesn't match the guardedness in her eyes when he looks at her. Garrus considers. The real answer is _another chance to tell you how I feel_ , but she'd stopped herself from asking that. Might be best to avoid it.

"Another chance to be with you," he says instead. "Time, conversation, proximity." He leans down and nips at her jawline. "The sex is just a bonus."

She grins at him, and tugs him closer, tucking herself more securely into his arms. He tries to will himself sheathed again, but she does him the service of not mentioning the obvious.

"I didn't think you'd want to be with me again," she says, just as he's starting to caress her hair. "After how I acted on Horizon."

He closes his eyes, his talons stilling. "I didn't," he admits. "And I did. If only so I could try and fix things."

"It's funny," she says. "Just a week ago, I was thinking, if I ever saw you again, I wouldn't know whether to punch you or kiss you. And then I saw you with _Shepard_ and I barely even talked to you."

"Well, you've definitely kissed the hell out of me today," he says, and she laughs softly. "And you've also hit me plenty, even if none of that was actually punching."

"I guess I got my wish," she says, and Garrus flutters his mandibles with fond amusement. She scoots higher and kisses his scarred cheek. "No punches because I was going easy on you."

"My fragile face and I say thank you."

Ashley promptly starts poking his face, apparently determined to disprove its fragility, until he grabs her hands and nips at her fingers, making her giggle with surprise.

"For what it's worth, I think your scars are kind of sexy," she offers.

He huffs, mock-offended. "'Kind of'?"

There's a gleam in her eyes as she throws a leg around his waist and flips him onto his back. He puts up no resistance as she reverses their hold so that she's the one holding his hands, then pins them above his head.

"I think they're _very_ sexy."

With that, she leans down and sucks his scarred mandible, sliding her body against his. She's still so wet that she almost glides over his cock, every ridge brushing over her clit, and as they both groan, Garrus tries to think a little, beyond how incredible it'd feel inside her without anything in the way. Thinking becomes increasingly difficult as she repeats the movement, and when she adjusts her angle on a downstroke, his tip touches her folds, and he knows that if he doesn't say something now, he _will_ end up taking her bareback.

"Ash," he manages to get out. "Condoms - bathroom -"

She gives one last, tortuously good roll of her hips before getting up. "Don't move," she says, retreating to the bathroom. He lifts his head to watch her go. "That's an order, Vakarian."

"Spirits," he groans, letting his head fall back onto the pillow.

"Not spirits," she says, reappearing in the doorway with a condom. "Ash."

"Ash," he says, and she starts back towards the bed. "Operations Chief Ashley Madeline Williams."

"You are the only person in the galaxy who can say my full name without making it sound like a reprimand, even with my full rank in front of it," she says. "Say it again."

"Operations -" He pauses. She'd mentioned in their text chat that she liked how he sounds untranslated. "Turn off your translator."

She switches it off, and this time when she hears her rank in Apien, she smiles wide and tries to repeat it. He gestures for her to turn it back on before saying, "Your accent is so bad and so adorable."

"I'd like to hear you try English," she says, smirking. He opens his mouth, but she shakes her head. "But right now all I want to hear you say is my name."

"Williams," he says rebelliously, and Ashley narrows her eyes as she climbs over him. "Ashley Madeline," he concedes, but the slide of the condom and her hands on him distract him from finishing it. As she finally sinks down onto him, ridge by ridge, her back arched in ecstasy, he says nothing but _Ash_ , over and over with each thrust made all the deeper by her movements.

He is so damn _close_ when his omni-tool rings.

Ashley groans, half exasperation, but doesn't stop moving. "You told _me_ not to take a call; don't you _dare_ answer that!"

"It's Shepard," he gasps. He has a specific ringtone for her. "I should probably -"

"Fuck Shepard," she snarls.

"I'm not really into threesomes," he says, and Ashley laughs despite herself. "But I _really_ should take this."

She glares, and stops moving, which he takes as a sign that he can safely tap the call through to earpiece. Right after he does it, she clenches tight around him, and he almost moans, "Shepard?"

Shepard is silent for a long moment as Ashley digs her nails into every sensitive spot she's found in his carapace and chest plates and Garrus claws the sheets beneath him in his desperate, failed attempts to stay quiet.

" _Is this a bad time?_ " she eventually asks, more wry amusement than confusion, because she's let more than one cycle of "spirits", "please", and "Ash, _stop_ " go by.

"Yes," he breathes, half in response to that thing Ashley does with her tongue when she takes one of his mandibles into her mouth. It could be worse: She could be actively riding him. "Are we shipping out?"

" _Yeah,_ " she says. " _Uh, you go ahead and finish up. Fifteen minutes good?_ "

"I'll be there," he manages.

Ashley leans down, close enough to kiss him, close enough to be picked up by his comm mic, and puts on cool professionalism, like that soldier voice she'd used on the Admiral from Personnel Command. "No, he won't be. Officer Vakarian is in Alliance custody."

" _Ash?_ " Shepard asks, bewildered.

"Uh," says Garrus eloquently. "Are you taking me in?"

"I'm keeping him," Ashley whispers into his mic, and then she reaches down to his omni-tool, cuts the call, and kisses him breathless.

He's not surprised that he comes with just one more roll of her hips. What _does_ surprise him is how violent his orgasm is, crashing through him and making him jolt up into her, his talons digging into her waist. Barely two thrusts later she joins him, and she bites the edge of his mouth plate as her inner walls flutter around him.

There's an ache in his lungs both exquisite and agonizing. Feeling more lightheaded than normal, Garrus breaks the kiss and gasps for air, and Ashley's eyes widen as she realizes something's wrong. She goes still, except to reach between them and put her hand on his chest.

"Breathe," she orders, and he moves her hand to where his lungs actually are, and tries to obey, drawing ragged lungfuls of air. It hurts and it's so _good_ and her reaction is proof that she _cares_ , which is its own brand of heartache.

"Spirits," he gets out eventually, when his breathlessness is merely that of exertion, not deprivation. "That was amazing."

"That was _scary_ ," she says, frowning at him as she lifts her hips to slip off of him. Three orgasms must have her incredibly sensitive by now. "God, you really do like not being able to breathe, don't you?"

"Sorry," he says, reaching up to caress her hair. "Are you still going to keep me?" He pauses, because her interruption to that call had been confusing. "Or are you arresting me because I'm with Cerberus?"

"How long did she give you?" she asks, her voice small and sad.

Garrus sighs. "Fifteen minutes."

Ashley's silent for long enough that he's not sure if she heard him or if she's fallen asleep, and then she lifts her head and sinks her teeth into the soft skin of his neck. He gasps, but she holds on and _sucks_ like she does on his mandibles, and he has to ask, even if it's strained with pleasure: "What are you doing?"

"Making sure that Shepard knows you're mine," she says, and his heart skips a beat.

"I think she knows," he says, closing his eyes as she leaves bruises across his neck. Without plating, his neck is achingly sensitive, and given his newfound kink, he's trusting her to only bruise him like he does to her. "When I asked her if she knew what the old squad was up to, you were at the top of her list without me asking, and she told me before we went down to Horizon that you were there."

"But she needs to _know_ ," Ashley mutters into his throat, before she lifts her head and surveys her work. Apparently satisfied, she kneels up and offers him a hand, and together they head into the bathroom for their things. Without discussion, they fall back into their seamless teamwork of the first _Normandy_ , neatly sorting the mess of their clothes into separate piles before starting to dress.

"Jack would probably be happy to tattoo me with 'Property of Ashley M. Williams'," he says, as he sorts out the condom. "That bald woman with us on Horizon."

She squints at him, trying to remember, and he watches the credit chit drop in her eyes. "I can't believe you're here with me when Cerberus operatives apparently don't own shirts."

"Ash," he says patiently. "You're the only one for me. No matter the organization or species."

Ashley smiles sadly at him, then hits a tone-perfect imitation of Shepard's promos. "I'm Chief Williams, and this is my favorite person on the Citadel."

"Not on the Citadel for much longer," he points out.

She sighs. "I guess we won't be seeing each other again."

"No," he agrees. It's not just the old turian and Williams and the new Cerberus and Alliance crap that'll keep them apart: "We're on a suicide mission."

"You're with Shepard," she says. "Of course you are."

"No, I mean we really won't come back this time," he says. "We're going through the Omega-4 relay."

Ashley draws a sharp breath, laying her forehead on his, and Garrus realizes that he's come back from the assumed dead only to tell her she's about to lose him again. "Shit."

"Yeah," he says, wrapping his arms around her. Maybe it's a little premature to say this when he hasn't even told her why he left the Citadel last time, but he's been trying to say it for over a year, and she did admit they have something and call him her favorite person on the Citadel. If she's going to lose him, this time she needs to _know_. "So I just want you to know: I lo--"

She grabs the underside of his jaw and clamps his mouth shut, shaking her head. "No. No, you don't get to tell me that. We _don't_ say that, not out loud, not _now_. If you _really_ want to say it..." Her eyes blaze. "You'll have to come back to me."

He pries her fingers off his chin and keeps a hold of her hands as he nods, knowing he's never going to say it so she can understand it in that case. At least she'll have his recording of the poem where he said it in character.

... if she hasn't deleted it.

"Fine," he says. "Then I'll just say that if turian heaven's the same as human heaven, I'm going to buy Kaidan and your father _so many_ drinks."

 _For giving me you,_ he doesn't add, but he's pretty sure she hears it anyway, because her face falls for a second before she's kissing him so hard that his heart hurts as he returns it. It's fierce, it's desperate, and it seems to last an eternity yet be over all too soon.

"Get out," she says, shoving him towards the door. "Take the condoms and the dextro meds, you have more use for them than me - _go_."

He goes.

 

Shepard is pacing on the dock when Garrus slinks back to the _Normandy_ right on the fifteen minute mark. She looks relieved when she sees him.

"Thought I'd have to Spectre you out of Alliance custody," she calls.

"For a second there, so did I," he says. As he gets closer, he watches her take in the bruises along his neck, and she smirks. "Please tell me no one else was on that line."

"Just me," she says. "Of course, the look on Thane's face watching me on the call was hilarious, especially because I didn't explain."

"Thanks," he says, but he doesn't open the airlock just yet. She's got that look on her face that says she's trying to decide not _if_ she should ask something, but _how_ , and he doesn't particularly care for having that conversation where Joker has an audio feed. EDI will probably tell him, but at least it'll be second hand instead of direct eavesdropping.

After a moment, Shepard asks, "That was _our_ Ash trying to take you in, right?" She pauses. Garrus admires her restraint in not mentioning the moaning, and hopes she's not about to ruin that. "Well, I guess she's more _your_ Ash, if she wanted to keep you."

Ashley's her own person who doesn't even sign e-mails with `yours`. She's his and she's Shepard's in very different ways.

She's the Alliance's before she's either of theirs, with an almost turian dedication to the cause. Maybe his heart stayed closer to home than he thought.

"Yeah," he says. "That was Williams."

Shepard nods. "I saw you with her earlier," she says. "With that politician."

"I don't want to talk about it," he says, massaging his throat.

"That's what you said about Sidonis," she points out.

"I mean it this time."

She nods, studying him, and then asks, "How is she?"

Garrus pauses. "In bed?"

Shepard rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean."

He shrugs. "She was angry, even before I ran into her. Drinking to get her mind off of it. And she's been reassigned. Wouldn't say where."

"Of course she wouldn't," she says, giving a sigh. "Thanks for the update."

"I think she's mad because she missed us," he offers. "Apparently she yelled at Anderson for not telling her about you."

She folds her arms. "You said she missed _us_."

Garrus heads into the airlock at last, Shepard on his heels. "I don't want to talk about it," he repeats.

" _Garrus_." She grabs his shoulder, spinning him around to face him as decontamination starts. "It's fine if you don't want to talk to me about her, I'm not what you'd call a relationship counselor, but I need to know: Where's your head at? Do you need to go back and talk to her?"

He shakes her off. "I said my goodbyes. Honestly, fighting the Collectors is going to be a welcome distraction."

"Okay," she says. "Look, I'm just worried about you. I'd hate to think we dealt with one issue only for you to walk straight into another."

"We didn't 'deal with' anything," he says incredulously. "I heard the news on the way here: Sidonis turned himself in, but C-Sec can't extradite him."

She pats his shoulder. "Give it time, Garrus. _Time_ , not ex sex."

"She's not my ex," he says, batting her hand away, and this time Shepard lets it go.

**Author's Note:**

> The scene with Talid is [illustrated](http://pohutukaryl.tumblr.com/post/161704755806/garrus-turns-around-and-kisses-ashley-pressing)!
> 
> While Garrus heads back to the _Normandy_ , [Ashley stays in the motel room](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4519896/chapters/10317906).
> 
> [Garrus and Shepard talk more about her on the ship again after this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4519896/chapters/10282002).
> 
> The _Normandy_ 's headed for Haestrom when they leave the Citadel, but after recruiting Tali they do "Lair of the Shadow Broker", where [the Shadow Broker had a dossier on Ashley](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4519896/chapters/10315995). The last section of the Garrus and Shepard on the _Normandy_ trio happens after Liara's visit.
> 
> Three months after "Arrival", [Mama Vakarian dies](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4519896/chapters/10282410), and [Sarah and Thomas get married about a week before ME3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4519896/chapters/10282335).
> 
> And that should bring you to the next full fic!


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